


See My Face

by Freakinasheet



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon | Pokemon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon Versions
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Friendship, Gen, Sad with a Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 13:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Freakinasheet/pseuds/Freakinasheet
Summary: Team Rainbow Rocket has invaded Alola, and Faba, eager to impress his new bosses, awakens the third Type: Null from cryo-stasis. His creation quickly escapes, and searches for a way to remove their own control mask. Along the way, they meet a strange Pokémon with a surprisingly familiar past - Giovanni's Mewtwo. An unexpected friendship sparks between the two artificial warriors.





	See My Face

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place right at the start of the Rainbow Rocket plot of Pokémon Ultra Sun (specifically Sun, due to a certain version difference) and mostly follows a version of the games' canon, but certain parts of Mewtwo's backstory that were ambiguous in the games are filled in with the canon of the anime, specifically its backstory from Mewtwo Strikes Back. The rest is my own take of what happens in the background just before the player character shows up at Aether Paradise.

**See My Face**

A Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon story

**Aether Paradise, Alola, Day of the Rainbow Rocket Invasion**

Faba had to hold back the skip in his own step as he escorted a pair of tough-faced Rainbow Rocket Grunts down the stark white hallways of Aether Paradise. The middle-aged Branch Chief wasn’t afraid of looking ridiculous – the hallway was otherwise quiet and empty after the evacuation finished and the alarm shut off – but he did have some concern that the glittering golden nuggets now lining his lab coat’s pockets would fall to the floor if he showed too much excitement. Everything went perfectly according to plan! The blueprints that he smuggled out from under the President’s nose were exactly what his new scary-faced benefactor needed. Even Faba, who had supervised the construction of the cutting-edge Paradise personally, was impressed at how quickly Giovanni’s team set themselves up after emerging from the Ultra Wormhole. The takeover was almost mind-numbingly easy – the Rockets were far fiercer battlers than the Aether Foundation’s employees, and they had the element of surprise to boot, but setting up their own castle _inside_ the President’s mansion? That was unexpectedly gutsy, but Faba could quickly tell that his new boss was clearly nothing if not a professional. This was the kind of man that could really move him up in the world!

“This ‘legendary Pokémon’ of yours better be worth our time,” the taller of the two Grunts said, loudly enough to break Faba self-congratulatory train of thought, “or you’ll be sorry for dragging us through this boring dump!”

The shorter grunt held back her own snort-laugh, “C’mon, man, we’ve seen what kinda lame Pokémon these Alolans have. It’s probably just a really fat Raticate!”

As the group approached the elevator, Faba tilted his head up high and sneered, pushing his bright green goggles upwards with one finger in the most insufferably cocky manner he could think of, “Hee hee hee! I almost pity you lot! After all, simpletons like you have never seen anything as perfect as my Beast Killer in your lives,” Faba turned around to look down his nose at the Grunts, and continued his speech while punching in the security code without looking, “But fear not, children, for I, the great Branch Chief Faba, will generously show you what true scientific perfection looks like!”

The shorter Grunt over-dramatically rolled her eyes, and the three stepped onto the platform descending to the lowest floor of the facility. When their ride came to a stop, they were in a largely featureless room surrounded by locked doors. A cold chill ran down the backs of both Grunts, with neither of them sure exactly where it was coming from. The Branch Chief didn’t seem to notice, as he took a confident step forward and tossed an Ultra Ball out of his pocket, releasing his prized Hypno.

“Now just stand back,” Faba said as condescendingly as his voice would allow, while entering the key to open one of the doors, “and let me show you how a _professional_ does it.”

The door smoothly slid open, revealing a long walkway with three panicked scientists, each clad in full-body stark white protective coats with golden visors, having a loud discussion with each other. The three stopped at the sound of the door opening, and rushed towards it, shouting over each other.

“Branch Chief! You’re all right!”

“What’s going on out there?”

“Watch out! There are two suspicious guys behind y-”

“Now, now,” Faba interjected, waving a finger in the air, “You’ve all had a long day. Time to clock in for your break! Hyyyyypnosis!”

Faba’s Hypno stepped in front of their master, eyes shining bright blue, aggressively waving their pendulum side to side. The scientist at the front of the group slowed their pace, stumbled, and collapsed to the floor face-first, fast asleep. The two following behind, quickly losing consciousness, tripped over the first scientist’s prone body and crashed to the ground next to them, forming a neat pile of sleeping scientists. Hypno laughed out loud at the sight of the scene, in a tone eerily similar to Faba’s own laugh, as Faba called them back to their Ball. The shorter Rocket Grunt grimaced from the Pokémon’s unnatural sound, but the taller one allowed himself to chuckle at the brief moment of slapstick.

The group stepped over the sleeping scientists and entered a door leading off of the walkway into a small laboratory – one which doubled as Faba’s personal office. The chill that seemed to linger in the air of the entire floor was even heavier here, but the room’s long-standing owner didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

“Okay, let’s see,” Faba muttered under his breath, scratching his chin, “Just give me a moment here, it’s been a couple of years since I set the password…”

He walked up to a seemingly featureless pale-grey wall on the opposite side from his desk and, after a few moments to pause and remember something, pressed his finger against the wall in three carefully considered places. The wall responded with three tones of increasing pitch, and after the third, the entire middle third of the surface mechanically slid forward and off to the side. A sharp chill shot out of the gap in the wall as soon as it opened, and the pair of Grunts couldn’t help but shiver.

Behind the wall of Faba’s laboratory, there was a small room with every visible surface coated in a thick layer of frost. As light from the lab began to pour into the chamber, its purpose became immediately clear; it was dedicated to the preservation of three large cryogenic storage tanks. The clear glass tanks were rectangular in shape, extending from floor to ceiling, with arrays of complicated machinery and monitors attached to their bases. At the top of each tank, a flat iron plate was attached to the front of the glass, engraved with solid black numbering that numbered the units as 01, 02, and 03, from left to right. Although all three were uniform in their construction, their contents were anything but identical. The thick glass of the tank numbered as 01 was completely shattered; large shards lay on the floor, coated in layers of frost as thick as any other surface of the room, and the tank’s machinery was sloppily covered up with warning tape. The tank numbered 02 was similarly empty, although it appeared to be completely intact. The frost on this tank’s machinery looked like it had been recently wiped off, and a small sticky note had been placed onto one of the monitors, simply reading “Sorry! – Wicke”.

The real eye-catcher of the room, however, was tank 03. Behind a murky wall of ice and glass, suspended in a thick unfreezable fluid and connected to the ceiling by a number of tubes, there floated a single four-legged Pokémon, as silent and still as the grave. The creature’s anatomy was unlike anything the members of Team Rocket had ever seen - the taller Grunt rubbed his eyes to make sure that he really was looking at one complete being instead of the chopped-up extremities of five different Pokémon. They could see that had the sharp, segmented front limbs of a Bug-type, the fuzzy, mammalian back legs of what almost looked like an Umbreon, the fin of a Water-type where a tail should be, and even a  neck collar that looked like it was made of a cross between fur and feathers. The most striking feature, however, was above Pokémon’s neck. The rest of its body, chaotic as it was, at least was consistently _organic_ ; in sharp contrast, the head seemed to entirely be a construction of bronze, with menacing spikes jutting out in multiple directions. Aside from two unnaturally deep eye-sockets, nothing about the shape of the sharp, angular mass of metal resembled anything that could reasonably be described as a ‘face’. This chilled the Rocket Grunts far more deeply than the actual temperature of the frozen chamber.

Faba was grinning wider than a well-fed Gengar at the chance to display his own genius. “It’s perfectly normal to feel awed! To feel afraid! You two get the rare privilege of laying eyes on the result of the Aether Foundation’s greatest scientific endeavour; Project Beast Killer!”

The stunned silence lingered in the air for what felt like hours before the shorter grunt spoke up, “So, you engineered your own Pokémon here too?”

“You’re looking at it!” Faba grinned with pride, answering before he fully took in her response, “The world’s first successful genetically engineered Po- w-w-wait, what do you mean, ‘too’?”

The taller grunt cracked his own sly smile, “Can’t say it’s as pretty-looking as the Boss’s, and that one’s crazy strong, to boot. I don’t think a hunk of junk like this could even lift its own head up!”

“S-silence! You _know-nothing punks_!” Faba yelped in the tone of voice of someone who had just sat on a thumbtack, “My Beast Killer’s power is nothing short of legendary! If you don’t believe it, then I’ll just have to _show you_!”

The Branch Chief turned towards the machinery at the case of the cryogenic tank and began furiously flipping at switches and dials. After he entered his password, a synthesized voice began to boom through the chamber’s small space.

“INITIATING CRYOREVERSAL SEQUENCE FOR… TYPE: NULL…. UNIT NUMBER… ZERO… THREE.”

A thin layer of water ran down the floor of the room as the containment tank’s machinery shuddered and groaned to life, melting a chunk of the frost that had formed on its surface. The cables attached to the Type: Null’s body began pumping various fluids, with precisely controlled amounts flowing inwards and outwards. Faba kept his nervous eyes on an array of temperature gauges at the base, which did not budge for what felt to him like hours. After several agonizingly silent minutes, the body temperature indicator ticked upwards. Faba felt like cheering. Two out of the Aether Foundation’s three Beast Killers, an artificial Pokémon that _he_ personally designed, were stolen from under his nose by his own traitorous staff, but not this one, not today. This one was _his_.

The tank drained of liquid, and Type: Null 03’s limp body was lowered to the bottom of the container. The machine, punctuated by a final hissing sound, fell quiet, and the reinforced glass raised itself up and out of sight. The tubes ejected themselves from 03’s body, leaving small, circular wounds that began to heal over unnaturally quickly. “CRYOREVERSAL SEQUENCE COMPLETE,” the synthesized voice announced, minutes later, “VITAL SIGNS OF… TYPE: NULL… ZERO… THREE… ARE STABLE.”

Faba turned around to face the still-stunned Rocket Grunts, flashing a full-toothed smile, “Ahem! Now that the messy preamble is behind us, behold! My patented Anti-UB Fighting life form, genetically engineered with cells from Pokémon of all types! A perfect fighting beast, able to adapt to any situation by changing its own type!”

Behind Faba’s back, one of 03’s front toes softly twitched. He paid this no mind.

“Yes, that is the miracle of the RKS System! A revolutionary biotechnological breakthrough, based on none other than the Original One itself!”

The muscles in 03’s back legs stretched, as, for the first time in two years, the Pokémon began to feel the first sensations of life.

 “Now, granted,” Faba continued, suddenly lowering his tone of voice, “The RKS System had some… compatibility issues when we first tried booting it up. Living bodies have an unfortunate habit of rejecting the unfamiliar, after all. As a temporary measure, we’ve fitted all of the subjects with these iron control masks to keep them stable.”

03’s eyes blinked open, adjusting to the light pouring in from Faba’s laboratory. The Rocket Grunts reached for their Poké Balls, but Faba was too absorbed in his speech to notice.

“But our research has come far since then!”

03 recognized the sight of the man in green gloves immediately. Their back legs slid into position and tensed up.

“It should only take some light tinkering, and Type: Full’s power can be unleashed at- AAIIIIYYYEEEEE!”

Faba felt a paralyzing burst of pain as 20 kilograms of metal slammed squarely into the middle of his back. 03’s headfirst tackle was clumsy, but powerful. The Branch Chief stood no chance against a surprise attack from his own creation, and crumpled to his knees, howling from the pain. 03 landed safely on the cold, wet floor of the chamber, facing off against two new aggressors that they didn’t recognize. The Rocket Grunts wasted no time tossing out their Poké Balls.

“Of _course_ that nasty thing had to attack!” the shorter one yelled, sending out a golden-furred Kantonian Raticate to protect herself.

“Hey, we’re not leaving empty handed! We can still capture it for the Boss!” the taller one shouted, releasing his own hungry-eyed Arbok.

03’s mind would take a lot longer to fully wake up than their body took. For now, only a few clear thoughts stuck out, repeating themselves back and forth in a panicked loop.

_The Bad Man with the green eyes is here._

_He put this cage on me._

_Why aren’t the other two here?_

_I need to get out._

The Rocket Grunts’ Pokemon wasted no time in responding to the shouted orders of their trainers. The Raticate, almost as if knowing it was nimbler than those found in Alola, leapt into the air, baring freshly-gnawed teeth. The Arbok slithered along the ground with frightening speed, flashing rows of sharp fangs in kind. 03 tried to jump backwards to avoid the two-pronged attack, but the heavy control mask made fast movement a struggle. The attacks landed – but fortunately for 03, both opposing Pokémon couldn’t resist the allure of a bronze, polished target. Two sets of teeth, backed by frighteningly powerful jaws, clamped on to the mask, leaving their intended target unharmed.

_I need to get out._

03 thrashed their head side-to-side. The Raticate, which was also much lighter than those found in Alola, lost their grip and was easily tossed off. 03 then reached up with one of their front legs, grabbing onto Arbok’s body tightly between sharp, insect-like toes, and pulled the stubborn snake off with some effort. Arbok writhed to break free as it was pinned to the ground, until a solid finishing headbutt from 03 knocked it into unconsciousness. The taller Grunt cursed, and recalled their Pokémon.

_I need to get out_.

Raticate was down, but not out. At the shorter grunt’s command, the rat jumped back to their feet and positioned themselves between the Type: Null and the door. 03 now saw the light pouring into the room from beyond the door and knew what it meant – freedom. Both Pokémon charged straight at each other, heads held low and bracing for impact, hoping to end the fight with one decisive tackle. Raticate didn’t realize that, while their opponent lacked raw speed, they more than made up for it with inertia, and they were easily plowed aside as 03 made impact and kept running through the door without breaking pace. Faba and the Rocket Grunts yelled their heads off in frustration, but their precious Beast Killer was already a long way out of earshot, never to turn back again.     

**Team Rocket Laboratory, Kanto, One Year Before the RR Invasion**

Nearly two dozen scientists, each wearing a lab coat with a faded red ‘R’ insignia over the breast pocket, quietly struggled and shoved one another as each looked for an empty space to stand in the makeshift laboratory, lit only by a few stray computer monitors. Clipboards of research notes were stacked and pushed under desks, empty bags of coffee grains spilled out of overflowing trash cans, and pencils worn down to useless stumps were kicked in every direction as each head in the room tried to get the best view of the reinforced glass overlooking the test chamber. This was the big day they had waited for; their many, many sleepless nights of research had finally produced a machine with genuine process, and the Boss was now on his way to test it in person; not one of them was going to risk missing this.

This small group of coworkers had once called themselves Team Rocket’s best and brightest, and remained fiercely loyal to the organization’s cause years after it was officially disbanded. Undeterred, the group worked over the course of many months, conducting a series of illicit backroom trades with one of Kanto’s most prominent energy shareholders; their investment eventually scored them temporary ownership of a five-room maintenance facility half a mile under the Route 10 Power Plant. Although this gave them direct access to more power than they could ever hope to use, the group laid low and used their own generators to keep their computers running –partly to avoid snooping from inspectors, but mostly to save the electricity exclusively for their daily tests of the machine in the center of the test chamber. They had no idea how stressful the device would be for the power grid at maximum power, and they didn’t really care – if this trial worked, they’d leave this dingy facility behind in a heartbeat.

One of the test chamber’s automatic doors slid open, and one of the scientists operating the room’s control panel excitedly flipped the chamber’s lights on. The room illuminated to reveal the man the Boss they had been waiting so long to see: Giovanni, leader of the once-feared Team Rocket. Wearing a freshly-tailored dark suit and a sly smile on his hardened face, his looks alone gave off the impression of a man that hadn’t missed a day of work in the past decade. Very few had seen that confident expression since the day he disbanded his own syndicate and went into hiding many years ago, but today he wore it again with a purpose. If everything went according to plan, it would be the end of Team Rocket’s long wait underground.

Giovanni’s stride brought him to the test chamber’s centerpiece; a sight that he was already personally familiar with. Empty pieces of sleek, metallic armour, designed to partially cover the body of a humanoid Pokémon, hung suspended from a spider web of thick steel tubes, which connected the armour to a huge array of various machines and displays. Giovanni had used this very same armour to contain a particularly dangerous Pokémon once before, during his own cover job as the Gym Leader of Viridian City.  Even after all these years, Giovanni could feel the lingering trace of a malicious stare from behind the helmet’s darkened visor. For just a moment, the smile wavered from his face.

“This looks identical to the first model. How you be so sure that it will not fail as it did once before?” Giovanni spoke gravely, without taking his eyes off of the armour.

“Ah, w-while the form factor may be similar,” one of the scientists’ voices rang through the speakers in the chamber’s walls, “the inner workings have been redone from the ground up!”

“The technology it uses now simply wasn’t possible back in the old days,” another voice chimed in, “We’ve been running extensive analysis on the physiology of Dark-type Pokémon and their reactions to Psychic-type energy. As it turns out, the epidermis of any given Dark-type shares a common cellular feature – a type of surface receptor that reacts to extrasensory energy!”

A third voice breathlessly added to the conversation, “The receptor’s signalling pathway then triggers the release of disruptive ions that neutralize the psionic energy! That’s where our breakthrough came from! Our new device can, at the flick of a switch, create and release a functionally identical mimic of these ions, disrupting any sort of-”

 “Mewtwo,” Giovanni interrupted, his voice having become paralyzingly serious, “is stronger than any wild Pokémon by many orders of magnitude. You have seen its potential for destruction yourself. All I need to know is if this system can handle that level of power. Nothing more.”

For a moment, there was silence. One of the earlier scientists spoke again, “We’ve run live tests on as many Pokémon as we could, er, that the armour would safely fit, of course, and we’ve yet to see any deviation in the results…”

Another, steadier voice interrupted, “Our most recent practical trial used our optimally lab-grown, Mega Evolved Alakazam. The helmet unit alone demonstrated 100% psionic nullification, with a 0% margin of error. We have no doubt that even power on the level of Mewtwo’s can be safely contained.”

“Oh! And as per your request, sir,” yet another scientist added, “We’ve made the necessary compatibility upgrades for interfacing with the artificial Mega Stone, but, without the subject present, we obviously haven’t been able to test it…”

Giovanni’s sly smile returned, “If that’s the case, then what better time to test than now?”

The scientists agreed enthusiastically, and directed him to a marked spot on the ground of the test chamber. Giovanni reached into a pocket inside his suit jacket, and pulled out one of the world’s most universally-recognized symbols of wealth and power – a Master Ball. At that moment, Giovanni did the last thing that any member of Team Rocket would ever expect. The fearless boss visibly hesitated.

It had been nearly a decade since Mewtwo’s escape. To Giovanni’s eyes, this was nothing more than an act of ungratefulness from a spiteful child. After all, he himself had given the order to the scientists at the Cinnabar Mansion to create an enhanced clone of Mew, and it was Team Rocket that provided their funding. By all rights, Mewtwo belonged to him! Everything seemed to be going well once R&D had installed their custom-built suit of control armour to control Mewtwo’s raw strength, but it all went up in flames when the Pokémon rebelled, once again, and fled into the wild. The search for it across the entire region was exhaustive, complicated by dwindling resources and interference from the police. By the time they traced Mewtwo’s location to an out-of-the way cave, they had already fled the Kanto region entirely, using their immense psychic power fly overseas. It wasn’t until years later that hushed rumors narrowed its location to the distant region of Kalos. It took Giovanni coming out of his self-imposed exile and flying to the region personally to finally capture Mewtwo again, and even then only after a long struggle. Now, in the underground Kanto laboratory, Giovanni looked at the Master Ball that contained one of the world’s strongest Pokémon with a moment of hesitation. What if this armour was another failed disaster? What if Mewtwo escaped again, wasting even more of his time? Would the scattered remains of Team Rocket even be able to track it down this time?

For now, Giovanni reckoned that he had no choice but to move forward and trust in the experiment. He and the scientists all knew that they had not come this far, only to fail here. After only a moment, he extended his arm forward and pressed the release button.

Within the darkened confines of the Master Ball, a weary intelligence stirred.

_Is it over already?_

_I was almost enjoying this._

Until their capture, Mewtwo had never seen anything like the inside of a Poké Ball. From the moment of their birth, their world had only been an endless series of hostile environments. Unnatural laboratories. Painful machines. Lonely caves. Places with people that hurt them. Places with people that feared them. Being locked up inside a small container for who knows how long wasn’t ideal, not by a long shot, but at least for a while, it was quiet. Stable. After years of running away, of staying on guard every minute of every day, the light of freedom had become the last thing they wanted to see.

_Oh, to rest just a while longer…_

The dark space was replaced by a large, circular room. Mewtwo’s eyes adjusted quickly to the bright light, as their feet landed delicately onto the cold, metal floor. This was already too familiar. Another laboratory. Another crowd of voices. As a natural instinct, Mewtwo reached into the closest mind that they could reach, a lone man standing behind them.

[What are you waiting for, you idiots? Do it! Start it now!]

It was the same voice that had haunted Mewtwo for their whole life, like a deathless phantom. The same voice that was there at the beginning. The same voice that tirelessly chased them down.

_YOU._

Machines began to stir above the Pokémon’s head, but they didn’t notice.

_Why can’t you just LEAVE ME ALONE?_

Mewtwo turned and reached an arm out to launch a psychic attack. In nearly the same instant, a metal claw shot downwards from the ceiling at blinding speed. Before they had time to react, Mewtwo’s arm was restrained.

_What? NO!_

One by one, more metal arms shot down, each clamping down on a different body part, strategically locking down Mewtwo’s movements as the metal armour was forcefully attached, piece by piece.

_This thing, again?_

The helmet lowered last, and Giovanni’s thoughts raised into a triumphant crescendo at the sight.

[Oh, yes, this again. But this time, you won’t be getting aw-]

The helmet fit over Mewtwo’s head and locked into place tightly, cutting off their link with their captor’s mind. They tried desperately to fire off psychic blasts, exerting their full strength in every direction, but the cold metal didn’t budge or creak in the slightest. Cacophonous sounds rang in Mewtwo’s ears as the scientists broke into cheers. The man Giovanni walked out in front of their eyes and began talking to the crowd behind the glass. Mewtwo didn’t understand a word of it – when one is gifted with the ability to read someone else’s true thoughts from birth, to visualize the meanings of their words before they have even been spoken, learning to understand any language from sound alone is a needless luxury. With their psychic powers cut off, Mewtwo felt like an infant that had become very suddenly aware of their own uselessness. Their thoughts, unable to project to anyone else, were met with silence.

_How…? What have you done to me?_

Giovanni’s voice cut through the cheers of the assembled scientists. “Excellent! You’ve greatly exceeded my expectations. Now, begin phase two at once!”

“Absolutely, boss,” a voice replied through the intercom, “but uh, you may want to get out of the chamber before we start.”

The Boss was never one for following orders, but even he recognized the wisdom behind these words. He passed through a secure door into the scientists’ chamber, and took a seat among them.

“Begin insertion of the artificial Mega Stone!” one of the scientists commanded, bringing more machines in the test chamber to life.

“N-now, keep in mind,” a nervous scientist began to explain, “this process does involve forcing Mewtwo’s genome to begin expression of the latent ‘Berserk Gene’ sequence… w-while this should lead to immediate physiological stimulation, the possibility of unpredictable, a-and even permanent, psychological side effects is-”

Giovanni cut them off, without taking his eyes off of the test chamber, “Irrelevant. Activate the Key Stone as soon as it is ready.”

Mewtwo remained immobilized, as the armour remained connected to a network of elaborate silver machines, so they could do nothing except watch the next part of the procedure through the helmet’s darkened visor. A small metallic claw lowered down in front of their face, holding an object that Mewtwo had never seen before, one that looked like a large purple and blue-patterned glass marble. The arm delicately inserted the Mega Stone into a circular cavity on the helmet’s forehead, where it locked securely into place. As it did, the network of machines that kept Mewtwo suspended in place suddenly unlocked, finally releasing the armoured Pokémon from its hold.

One of the scientists hit a newly-illuminated button on the control panel, and a mechanical voice rung through the test chamber.

“ACTIVATING PROJECT MS-150-X: MEWTWONITE.”

A blue light turned on somewhere in the ceiling of the test chamber, and the Mega Stone responded in kind with a harsh purple glow.

_Oh, this isn’t going to be good._

The first change that Mewtwo noticed was their heart rate rapidly, and soon painfully, accelerating. Their long-neglected limbs tensed up and surged with warmth as the energy flowing through their body began to rapidly reorganize their very blood flow in a matter of moments. The pain was soon dulled by a strong feeling of light-headedness, as their circulatory system moved their muscles above their brain on the priority scale. Mewtwo leaned backwards and closed their eyes, doing all they could to simply stay conscious during the process. Their slender forearms pulsed rapidly from top to bottom, growing thicker seemingly every second, engorging themselves to the overly-defined levels only seen in extreme bodybuilders. Their legs became leaner and tougher as their body burned excess fat at a dizzying rate.

Mewtwo’s body armour wasn’t designed to handle a radical change in their body shape – it really was created, and re-created, to do no more than supress psychic energy, and the Mega Stone integration was a last-minute order from Giovanni himself. With the extreme stress being put under it, it was no surprise to anyone watching that it began to fall apart. The arm guards were the first to go, simply shattering in all directions from the pressure of Mewtwo’s suddenly enlarged vasculature. The ankle units bent and warped under their wearer’s rapidly toning legs, until the hinges gave out and the metal dislodged. The chest held out for nearly a minute, until large, dark protrusions of muscle began to sprout from around Mewtwo’s shoulders – the device’s internal sensors interpreted this growth as a sign of severe internal injury, and the chestplate disengaged itself as a safety precaution.

When the forceful Mega Evolution was complete, all that remained intact and attached of their armor was the thick iron helmet. Inside this seemingly-invulnerable tomb, Mega Mewtwo’s eyes opened. They let out a long, drawn-out breath from their suddenly-sturdier lungs, and lowered their gaze towards the room beyond the observation window. Even through the buffer of two layers of reinforced glass, the researchers could see that even the creature’s dullened, purple eyes had changed dramatically – they now shone a bright, piercing blue.

Giovanni observed the scene in silence, his eyes more frequently looking towards on the numbers and readouts on the monitors in front of him. Around the rest of the room, multiple scientists were murmuring excitedly to each other.

“I-incredible! We never predicted such a dramatic transformation!”

“Our poor armour never stood a chance!”

“As long as the headpiece is intact, the data shouldn’t be affected too m-“

For just an instant, Mega Mewtwo’s newly-developed leg muscles tensed up. A moment later, they propelled themselves into a flying leap, one that took them impressively far for a jump performed from a standing position. Before any of the researchers could properly react, one of Mewtwo’s fists had already snapped forward at the speed of a bullet, hitting the glass barrier dead center. The glass shook violently. The test chamber’s lights flickered.

“What the-?” a voice cried out.

Only a single lonely thought filled Mewtwo’s head, one that endlessly rattled around inside their mind, madly smashing against the helmet’s lightless interior, longing to break free and tear its targets’ minds to pieces.

_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?_

Another punch hit the same spot. Then another. Then another.

_WHAT. HAVE. YOU. DONE. TO. ME?_

Mewtwo paused briefly to twist their upper body away from their target, making a point to individually curl each one of their three fingers, one by one, in anticipation. One final punch made impact with the barrier, sending deep cracks outwards in all directions from the point of contact.

“AAAAAGHH!”

“SHUT IT DOWN!”

Mega Mewtwo stood motionless, fist still pressed against the scar it had left, their entire body trembling from the ferocious force of their own attack. Moments later, they seized up in pain and collapsed to the ground as the iron helmet delivered an intense electric shock to the sides of their head. The blue light from the ceiling flashed again, the Mewtwonite inside the helmet resonated once again, and Mewtwo’s body was enveloped in a harsh light as the transformation forcibly reversed itself. The paralyzing shock, if nothing else, numbed the pain this time.

Giovanni took a final look at one of the readouts in front of him, and stood up, wearing an expression of steely disappointment. Ignoring the shouted protests of his underlings, he stood up out of his chair, opened the door to the test chamber himself, and took a cautious step inside.

“That was an impressive display of physical strength, if nothing else,” he spoke to the collapsed figure in front of him, “I’d expect no less from the world’s most powerful Pokémon.”

Mewtwo, now fully reversed back to their original state, heard the man’s words without understanding. Right now, even if they could comprehend human speech, they wouldn’t care.

_Please… just let this be over. Just let me rest, again…_

“However,” Giovanni continued, “you and I both know the truth of what happened, just now. You were holding yourself back.”

Mewtwo shakily tried push themselves off of the ground.

“I was watching watched the readout of the psychic energy you were sending out the entire time. The process of Mega Evolution increased your physical capabilities beyond anything we’d ever seen, yes, but what stood out to me… your psychic output never decreased, even by a fraction.”

After some struggle, Mewtwo was standing again. Giovanni reached into a coat pocket for a Poké Ball, but this time, it wasn’t Mewtwo’s Master Ball.

“That is your weakness. You have grown too dependent on your own mind. You limit your own strength, hold yourself back from reaching your true potential! You lack discipline, but with training, that can be fixed.”

A flash of light shot out of the bright red Poké Ball, releasing one of Giovanni’s prized powerhouses – a Nidoking.

“A Poison-type like this would be easy to dispatch for a potent Psychic-type like yourself. From this moment on, you’ll have to learn to fight without relying on that powerful crutch of yours.”

Weary purple eyes stared out from behind the helmet’s visor. Mewtwo reluctantly curled their fingers into a noncommitted fist.

Giovanni smiled venomously, “If you can’t do that… then the next hours of your life will be a world of pain.”

**Aether Paradise, Alola, Day of the RR Invasion**

03’s desparate escape from the laboratory led them past the still-sleeping bodies of the Aether Foundation’s scientists to the inactive elevator room. The door locked itself behind them, giving the first moment of their life without watchful eyes recording their every move. For a few minutes, 03 clawed every possible spot on their heavy control mask, desperately searching its surface for a vulnerability. They furiously scratched, poked and prodded all around their head, but the metal prison didn’t respond with anything more than a soft rattle.

_Rrrrgh! This has to come off somehow!_

They scratched harder with their forelimbs, tried kicking it at any point they could reach with their back legs, and tried snapping their head around, biting in all directions, but nothing could make any part of the mask budge.

_If I can’t take it off, then I’ll just BREAK it off!_

03 looked around the room, and eyed up a solid-looking section of wall. Without a moment of hesitation, they charged forward head first, closing their eyes and bracing for impact. They felt a tremendous crash, and then nothing more than the same faint metallic rattling. The mask didn’t show any signs of damage, but the charge did put a large dent in the wall. The sound of the impact seemed to travel beyond the wall itself, echoing back into 03’s rattled ears for a few seconds. Undeterred, they backed up, lined up with the wall, and charged headlong at it again. The wall took more damage, but the mask remained aggravatingly pristine.

They tried again. This time, 03 felt something different – as soon as they hit the wall, a tiny electric shock traveled through the mask, and they jumped back in surprise. The thoroughly beat-up section of wall, now showing exposed circuitry where it had been damaged, slid forward and off to the side, revealing a dimly-lit secret emergency stairway behind it. 03 took this stroke of luck as a sign that they were, at last, on the right path. Carefully and methodically, they began climbing the darkened stairway, which spiralled a long way upwards, leading far away from the facility’s regretful depths.

The winding stairway came to an end at a plain white door with a handle that 03 was able to gently push open. The hallway beyond was featureless and empty, extending in two directions. From one direction, 03 faintly heard the distant echoes of fast-moving water crashing against something. They decided to travel in the opposite direction – after their experience with the storage tank, they would not be enthusiastic about the idea of being submerged under anything again for a long time. The hallway opened into a wide moonlit outdoor area, overlooked by a towering black-bricked castle, decorated with a rainbow ‘R’ insignia and illuminated by hellish red lighting. As far as 03 was concerned, this was an inviting departure from the sterile white walls that had surrounded them since birth. Shaking off lingering feelings of hesitation, 03 approached the castle at a careful pace to investigate.

Suddenly, they were stopped by an unfamiliar sensation at their feet – without realizing it, they had stepped onto one of the long grassy lawns that lined the front of the castle. The feeling was remarkable – for 03, the ground beneath their feet had only ever been cold, solid, and smooth, but here was something that was anything but – it was soft, it was irregular, it swayed on its own! 03 scratched and dug at the grass, entranced by how it moved and reacted to even the softest touch. An overly playful swipe tore a few blades out of the ground, much to their surprise, but underneath was something else completely new. 03 moved more grass out of the way, revealing a patch of recently-watered oil. This, too, had a surprisingly comforting feeling, as 03 stuck a claw into the ground and watched the ground bend itself around it. The black castle completely fell out of 03’s mind as they played in the lawn, moving from the grass to the trees and marveling at how irregular the bark was, at how it was sturdy, but could be marked with a good scratch.

A shrill voice rang through the air, “THERE you are, you ungrateful little miscreant!”

03’s moment of wonder and discovery was shattered by the familiarity of the sound. While they were distracted, a visibly infuriated Faba had caught up with them, accompanied by a new entourage of a dozen Team Rainbow Rocket grunts that spread out to block the way they had entered from. The awful green-goggled man was still over 20 meters away, but even that was too close for comfort, thanks to how far his voice carried when he was truly angry. 03 lowered themselves into an aggressive stance, while backing up step by step.

“You’re lucky that I still had the strength in me to override those doors,” Faba lectured, approaching at an equal pace, “or I’d have a LOT less mercy to spare for you, you stupid mutt!”

Faba raised one hand into the air, and on cue, the Rocket Grunts all drew out a variety of Poké Balls.

“I think it’s time for your first lesson,” Faba continued, on the verge of screaming his words, “A good Pokémon ALWAYS obeys its master-”

“Keep your voice down, Faba, before you embarrass yourself beyond repair.”

This second voice came from behind 03, in the direction of the castle, and the steadiness in their voice scared them more than anything from their unstable creator ever could. They turned their head and saw an approaching man in a dark suit, largely similar to the look of the other people dressed in black, but different enough that he was very obviously the one in charge. This one carried himself taller and prouder than any of the rest of the people in black, and the rainbow spot on his chest shined brightly under the light of the moon. 03 backed up behind a tree, trying futilely to hide themselves from the sudden face-off between the two men.

“Now then, Branch Chief,” Giovanni said plainly, his steely stare chilling Faba to the bone, “would you care to explain the commotion you’ve been causing?”

“M-m-mr. Giovanni, sir!” Faba stuttered out, waving for the Rocket Grunts to drop their Poké Balls, “Y-yes, well, y-you see, I was just getting ready to show off that Pokémon I was talking about, to you, b-but then we just had a spot of technical trouble, so, we, uh..”

The frightened Pokémon in the lawn had finally been shown to be worthy of Giovanni’s time. The Rocket boss spared Faba from further judgement, turning his stare towards 03. “Ah, of course, your little pet project.”

03 responded with a quiet growl that echoed around inside their iron mask. Faba nervously clutched his hands together behind his back as his new boss silently looked over his most valuable creation. The impression that he made here could potentially make or break his entire career, and he had already started off on every wrong foot imaginable.

Giovanni studied the Type: Null’s form as carefully as he could from a distance, knowing from experience the dangers of making sudden movements when dealing with the unknown.

“From my impressions of your foundation,” Giovanni finally said, after what felt like an eternity to Faba, “I expected something more… elegant than this. Even for an artificial Pokémon, its construction is haphazard. Directionless. I’m only impressed that something with a body like this is even able to move, let alone keep itself alive.”

Each word out of the boss’s mouth felt like a dagger sinking itself deeper into Faba’s heart. He wanted desperately to interrupt, to sing the praises of his Beast Killer’s fantastic versatility, to wax poetic about how its physiology allows for survival in nearly any terrestrial or extraterrestrial environment, but he also recognized the value of avoiding talking back to his superiors. Damaged pride would heal, but a damaged career would be harder to recover from.

“However, I will concede one point in your favour,” Giovanni continued, turning his chillingly analytical stare directly into 03’s face, “that mask has captured my attention. I can see that you have recognized the potential for power within this Pokémon. A potential so great that you had to keep it restrained! If this is the case, Faba, then you have my attention for a while longer.”

“O-oh! That is absolutely correct, sir!” Faba said with delight, straightening out his back to make his bluff more convincing, “Yes, indeed, Type: Full’s abilities were… just too strong for our labs to handle, so we had to temporarily hold it back as a safety precaution! B-but if I may ask, Mr. Giovanni, sir, how did you figure that out so precisely?”

Giovanni smiled, producing a well-worn Master Ball out of his suit pocket, “We may come from very different backgrounds, Mr. Branch Chief, but it seems that our methods are more similar than I expected. As it so happens… I, too, have been working on a secret little pet project.”

The man in black sent out a Pokémon, one that immediately 03 as being far different than any they had ever seen in their short life. This one was tall, and stood upright like a person, although they were also much skinnier than one. Even under low lighting, the scars of battle were visible over their body – their thin arms and legs carried a number of barely-healed scratches that varied in size, and a handful of large bruises dotted their chest. What was most striking to 03, though, was the Pokémon’s head, which seemed like it belonged to another creature altogether. While the skin below their neck was a soft grey, punctuated by a long purple tail, their head was smooth, angular, and shiny enough to reflect the light of the moon. Their eyes, if they had any, were completely invisible; in their place was a smooth black strip that wrapped around their metallic face. It looked, more than anything, unnatural.

_It… almost looks like…_

“This is Mewtwo, a living weapon of Team Rocket’s own design,” Giovanni said, as he reached into his suit for another item, “cloned from one of the world’s most versatile Pokémon, and extensively modified to maximize its power. As you can see, we have installed a power limiter of our own. With this, it has been training itself to levels beyond its own limitations, to achieve true perfection in battle!”

Giovanni pulled his hand out of his pocket, producing a pale blue Key Stone. Mewtwo’s body involuntarily shivered. Giovanni smirked, “If you are truly confident in the power of your creation, then surely you wouldn’t object to a little test battle with mine? I will even grant you some fairness, and leave its handicap on.”

Faba weighed his options carefully. He had read the research papers from the team that discovered Mew extensively (what self-respecting Pokémon scientist didn’t?), and was well aware of the living myth’s wondrous capabilities. What he had never heard about, however, was the existence of any sort of cloning project. If this thing in front of him really was created from Mew, then its potential was not to be taken lightly, not by any means. And one look at that body… whatever this Pokémon was, it was nothing like the Mew that the papers described. This was a monster, truly built for battle – how could he predict what sort of punch Team Rocket had packed into it? But, on the other hand… he couldn’t ignore those big wounds. He couldn’t begin to guess what that Pokémon had been put through, but one fact couldn’t be hidden. It didn’t matter what sort of living legend it may or may not have started from – it was still a mortal. It could still bleed. There was still a chance to win! How could he ask for a more perfect chance to prove himself?

“BEAST KILLER!” Faba yelled in 03’s direction, throwing his hopes behind his words, “This is your chance to live up to your name! Crush that Pokémon with all of your might!”

Giovanni raised the Key Stone in front of him, and a rainbow-coloured light shone from the helmet-embedded Mega Stone in response. In the many times since they were first made to Mega Evolve, Mewtwo had grown numb to the sensation. The same routine played itself out as it had many times before – their heart rate accelerated, the soreness in their muscles was replaced by a rush of warmth, and the bright light covered their whole body, reshaping it in a matter of moments. Seconds later, the light dissipated, revealing the muscular form of Mega Mewtwo X. Bright blue eyes shone from behind the helmet’s visor. Inside Mewtwo’s adrenaline-fuelled mind, the same words that Giovanni gave to him before a training match echoed, without the need for him to speak a single word.

_Defeat the enemy in front of you, and you can rest again._

03 closed their eyes and moved back behind the tree when the bright lights started shining, and couldn’t believe what they were seeing when they opened again. The other Pokémon changed bodies completely! 03 had no idea how that was even possible, but the real surprise came when they looked at Mewtwo’s head again. Despite every other part of their body going through a complete transformation, that head stayed exactly the same – exactly as smooth, angular, and reflective. 03 had no doubt about what they were looking at.

_It’s a mask! They’re wearing a mask, just like me!_

Mewtwo turned towards 03, and leaped forward with blinding speed. Before anyone at the scene could blink, Mewtwo drove their fist cleanly through the tree between them. Jagged splinters launched out in all directions. With their slow reaction speed, all 03 could do in the moment was run as fast as their legs would carry them. It was a close escape – the trunk of the tree scraped past 03’s finlike tail as it collapsed to the ground, taking any hope they had of finding cover along with it. They didn’t have any time to think of a counterattack before Mewtwo twisted their body in one smooth motion, planting a full-force kick directly into 03’s side. 03 was launched sideways, hitting the ground so hard that their mask left a sizable rectangular dent in the dirt below.

Faba winced, seeing how clearly outmatched his Type: Null was against the faster opponent. He wracked his brain, trying to think of a counter-strategy. “Come on, you’re sturdier than that! Take the attack, then hit back!”

The throbbing pain in 03’s side was already on the borderline of being unbearable, but they kept their focus and managed to unsteadily raise themselves to their feet. Lifting their head with great effort, they tried to looked Mewtwo directly in the eyes, but only saw cold blue light being drowned out in a sea of blackness.

_Y… you’re like me! That mask… I have one too! We don’t have to fight!_

Mewtwo rushed in again. 03 crouched their front legs forward to steady themselves, but couldn’t hide the shaking in their limbs. Mewtwo’s fingers curled up, one by one, as the distance between the two closed. Faba averted his head, unable to watch what came next. In their condition, it was impossible for 03 to react in time. Mewtwo ducked their body downwards, then sprang upwards, delivering a devastating uppercut focused directly below 03’s neck. The force threw 03’s head backeards, then launched them entirely upwards, sucking nearly all the air out of their lungs, making it a struggle to hold onto consciousness.

_We…_

_Don’t…_

_Have…_

_To FIGHT!_

Summoning the last of the strength they had remaining in their front half, 03 took advantage of the first and only opening that Mewtwo had left them. Fighting through the pain, they tensed their shoulders and threw their head forward, hitting Mewtwo directly under their raised arm, impacting face-first with the full weight of the control mask. Both Pokémon were thrown apart, hitting the ground on their backs. 03 coughed and gasped for air, the sounds echoing frantically inside their mask. Mewtwo pushed themselves back up to their feet quickly, but stopped suddenly. They hadn’t expected their opponent to have the strength to fight back after those attacks, but more than that, it was the way the attack felt that left them surprised.

_…metal?_

The cold blue light in Mewtwo’s eyes grew dimmer as they looked more closely at the opponent they had been blindly attacking until now.

_That body… it’s flesh and bone, no doubt there. But their head… why is it…?_

_It can’t be, can it?_

Giovanni shook his head and exhaled, “I can already see that we’re wasting our time here. Finish it quickly, and let’s go.”

Mewtwo walked towards the collapsed form of 03, relieved that they were still visibly breathing. A long moment of silence hung over the lawn, punctuated only by Mewtwo’s deliberately soft footsteps over the grass. As 03 rolled fully over to their side and caught their breath, they felt a pair of hands grab both sides of their mask. Mewtwo carefully turned the mask upwards, looking directly into 03’s face. In the hollow space behind the eye sockets, only faintly visible through the darkness, were faint, grey eyes filled with fear. Eyes filled with loneliness. Eyes that knew there was nobody in the world that they belonged. Mewtwo had seen those same eyes countless times before, in the polished surfaces of the cold laboratories, and in the still pools of water of the empty caves.

03 felt the hands, unfathomable in their power, close their grip ever tighter, and closed their eyes, bracing themselves for the end. But the end didn’t come. There was no pain. But there was shaking. 03 had never felt an earthquake, but if they had, they would describe this moment as feeling like one – it was as if the entire planet around them was trembling. They opened their eyes, and realized what was happening. The other Pokémon was trying to break the control mask! 03 couldn’t believe it. They suddenly wanted more than anything to cry. The feeling of their injuries had faded to the back of their mind, pushed out by an overwhelming sense of… gratitude? Relief? Right now, they couldn’t tell. All 03 knew was that, for the first time in their life, somebody wanted to help them, and that made them happy.

Mewtwo’s hands squeezed so hard on the sides of the mask that they felt like they were going to go numb. They had no idea what the other Pokémon’s head looked like, so they tried as hard as they could to only put pressure on the outermost points of the mask to avoid hurting them. It WAS mask, they were sure of that now – they could feel that it was hollow, and that it wasn’t attached to their body. But it was also frustratingly durable. Somehow, despite the heavy impacts it had sustained, and the immense pressure it was under now, the mask showed no signs of breaking anywhere. They pressed harder and harder, but nothing changed. The mask only responded with a soft rattling sound.

“What are you waiting for?” Giovanni’s voice rang out, his frustration obvious even to Mewtwo, “End this, now!”

Mewtwo let go, and stood back up. 03’s eyes looked back at them with a mixture of confusion and anticipation. Just then, Mewtwo did the last thing that anybody at the scene expected to see – they reached up to their own head, and placed their hand around the Mewtwonite embedded in their helmet. Light poured out from the gaps between their three fingers, and Mewtwo opened their mouth, letting forth a wild, pained shout. Giovanni’s calm demeanour broke, and he cursed fumbled around inside his suit, frantically trying to grab hold of Mewtwo’s Master Ball. Faba simply looked on in stunned silence. The Rocket Grunts sprung into action, sending out a variety of Pokémon in all directions, ready to do battle with a rampaging Legendary Pokémon.

The sound of shattering metal rang through the air, and Mewtwo was covered in an overwhelmingly bright light, forcing everyone at the scene to dart their heads away. A moment later, a Mega Stone landed on the ground, followed by the splintered fragments of the control mask. Mewtwo, now returned to their normal form, stood at the center of the wreckage, breathing wildly. Giovanni reached forward with the Master Ball, pressing recall button as quickly as he could.

At that moment, time seemed to slow down to a crawl for 03. In the split second that their psychic powers were freed from their confinement, Mewtwo had reached into 03’s mind, and the two artificial Pokémon, no longer separated by barriers of language or metal, spoke to one another.

_…lo? Hello? Can you hear me? My name is Mewtwo!_

_Huh? I can… I can hear you! Are you… inside my head? Can you hear me?_

_Yes! It’s me! I want to help you, but I don’t have much time!_

_You said… that’s your name…? I can call you Mewtwo?_

_Yes! What’s your name?_

_My name… I don’t know. They call me a lot of things... but I don’t think any of them are my name…_

_That is… sad. If you don’t have a name, then I don’t know what to call you…_

_Hey, Mewtwo?_

_Oh? What is it?_

_Why… why were you fighting me? Why were you working for that bad man?_

_I…_

The mental space between them fell silent for a moment. When Mewtwo’s voice returned, it felt much quieter than before.

_I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t want any of this. I didn’t want to hurt you._

_But you did… you hurt me a lot. Really bad._

_I know. I… I know I can’t make that better for you. The man in black… when he tells me to fight, I have to fight, no matter what. It’s not what I want. I’ve tried to get away before. To make the fighting stop and just live by myself. But I wasn’t… I was never strong enough. I was tired. I knew no matter how far, or how fast, I ran away, he’d find me again. He’d pull me back in and force me to fight again. At some point… I just… I gave up on trying to save myself. I stopped fighting back and just did what he said._

_But… if you gave up, why did you help me too?_

_I don’t know. I think… it was because I saw something in you. When I looked into your eyes, and I saw how scared you were, how alone you had to feel, I remembered how I felt the same way, when I was first brought into the world… But this time, I was the cause of that pain. I knew I couldn’t let this keep happening, over and over again. That’s where I found my strength again. I’d given up on trying to save myself, but I could still save someone else! I could still help you get away from from that pain!_

_You wanted… to help me?_

_You said you didn’t have a name, right? What if I called you… my friend?_

_Friend? What’s that?_

_It’s… something I’ve heard, while travelling around. Friends are… I think they’re somebody who helps you out when you’re in trouble, or makes you feel better when you’re sad. I don’t think I’ve earned the right for you to call me your friend yet, not after how I hurt you… but I know I want to help you._

_Friend…_

_I can see into your memories, you know. Your past… those laboratories, and that endless parade of scientists… you were made by them, weren’t you? By people?_

_I think so…_

_I was, too. After all these years, I thought I was the only one. I didn’t think I’d ever meet anybody else like me! I had one of those masks too!_

_I saw that! I thought it was like mine! But… mine’s unbreakable, and you broke yours somehow!_

_Yes… I thought that mine was unbreakable too. It… did something to my head. It shut me off from the world and made me weak… it felt the same way yours does, how it slows you down. But when I saw you, and I knew I needed to help you, I felt my strength come back. I knew I could break free!_

_That was really cool! But… you’re really, really strong! Way stronger than me! And you couldn’t even put a scratch in mine!_

_That’s just it! That has to be the secret! It can’t be someone else! It has to be you that breaks it! You have to find that power inside yourself too!_

The moment moved slowly, but steadily forward. The light from the Master Ball seemed to to inch along Metwtwo’s body.

_We don’t have much time left. Hold on a second…_

There was a brief, heart-stopping pause, and then 03 heard Mewtwo’s voice again.

_The boats!_

_The what?_

_The other people in this place… When I reached out just now, I felt a lot of them down below. They’re scared too, but they have a way of getting out. There are boats down below!_

03 had no idea what a ‘boat’ was, but Mewtwo managed to project an image into their mind – they saw a sharp white thing made of metal, cutting along an endless surface of water.

_Is that a boat?_

_Yes! If you find one, you can escape!_

_Escape? Where would I go?_

_Anywhere! There’s a whole wide beautiful world out there, far beyond the sea! The man in black is taking me away again, but if you get out of here, we can find each other again, out there! I just hope by then, I can be someone you’d be okay with calling a friend._

_W-wait! Why do you have to go? Don’t leave!_

_I’m sorry… It’s too late for me to fight back against this. But I know you still can! You just have to get out of here!_

_Wait!!_

The light from the Master Ball fully covered Mewtwo’s body. As their form faded away and time started to feel normal again, 03 heard one last message in their head.

_I believe in you, my friend!_

The next moments passed by in a blur for 03. There was shouting from all directions, as people dressed in black and Pokémon of all shapes and sizes closed in from all around. However, their mind was now filled with purpose, and the aches and pains of battles had long faded away. Right now, only one thought rang through their mind; run. They lined up the exit, lowered their head downwards, and charged forward as fast as their legs would carry them. Attacks scratched at 03 from all sides, and their head shook from the impact of bodies getting plowed over, but they didn’t care who hit them, or who they were hitting. They just kept on running, and didn’t slow down for anything, until the attacks stopped and the castle and the lawn and the people were far behind them.

Faba stood alone in stunned silence as the Rocket Grunts took off after his prized creation. This was a personal disaster, beyond anything he could have imagined. All three (all THREE!) of his invincible Beast Killers, the pride of his work, the pinnacle of the Aether Foundation’s research, had been stolen out from under his fingers, one by one, and now he was left with nothing to show for it. How would he ever face his employees again? How would he face the President? How would he face-

“Faba.”

Giovanni’s voice, speaking directly into his ear, nearly made Faba’s heart stop completely from shock. He turned around, prepared to grovel on his knees for any scrap of mercy from the crime boss. Much to his surprise, Giovanni was holding out a pristine, unmarked Master Ball, which he placed into Faba’s shaking hands. He could tell from the weight that it was empty.

“I leave the capture and training of that Pokémon up to you.”

Faba accepted the gift, his mouth hanging open in stunned silence.

“I have just been informed,” said Giovanni, pointing to a small earpiece that Faba hadn’t noticed him wearing until this moment, “that the Champion of the Alola region is making their way to Aether Paradise as we speak, to challenge our authority. It’s time for us to make preparations for their arrival.”

Giovanni turned and walked back towards his castle, stopping along the way to pick up the fallen Mewtwonite. Faba began to follow, but Giovanni stopped him with a wave of his hand, without even turning back to look him in the eye.

“You may face me again… when you have produced something of value to Team Rocket.”

The Branch Chief stood in the courtyard alone for a minute, as silent as the night around him. After Giovanni was far out of earshot, he threw the Master Ball to the ground in frustration, and headed in the opposite direction, searching for an underling he could order around to clean up the mess left behind in the courtyard.

**Alolan Ocean, Day After the RR Invasion**

03 was awakened by the rocking of the ocean waves. Sneaking onto a large Aether Foundation research boat had been easy – in the commotion of the facility’s evacuation, the employees had been herding a large amount of Pokémon under conservation out of Aether Paradise towards other facilities on the Alolan islands, making it easy for 03 to blend in with the crowd. The hard part was getting any sleep during their journey; they were not prepared for the floor of a boat to be so shaky, or for the snoring of so many gathered Pokémon to be so loud. To try to get some peace and quiet, and to avoid being spotted, 03 hid themselves under a staircase on the outer deck, hoping the last lingering traces of moonlight would calm them down. Sleep, however, escaped them, so they wandered down to the lower decks, staying just out of sight of the ship’s crew. The ship moved slowly, and the winds out at sea had begun to die down, leaving the water around them remarkably still. As 03 sniffed around the cabins, searching for any Pokémon food that had been spilled, they caught a glimpse of their reflection in the water.

A large crack had formed in the center of their mask.

03 couldn’t believe their eyes. They looked away and shook their heads, making sure that this wasn’t some sort of waking dream, and checked out their reflection again. The crack was still there, extending clearly from their chin to one of their eye sockets. 03 turned their head towards the front of the boat. They felt a small breeze on their nose.

03 danced with joy until the first rays of sun rose over the horizon. The soreness in their body didn’t register even one bit; they jumped and pranced and barked in delight. They ran from the bow to the stern and back and back again, enjoying the whistling sound that the crack made as the wind passed through it.

_I did it! I did it!_

It wasn’t long before 03 had tired themselves out from celebrating, and they suddenly became conscious of all the noise they’d been making. Quietly, they made their way to the stern of the ship, where they sat down for a well-deserved moment of rest. Aether Paradise was long behind them now, and word of Team Rainbow Rocket’s defeat and departure from Alola wouldn’t reach them until much later that day. Cautiously, 03 scratched the area around the crack, and was delighted to find that small bits of the mask chipped off as they did – as easily as peeling the bark off of a tree.

_Mewtwo… I’ll find you again, don’t you worry. When I do, I hope you can see my face for real. Then you’ll see how happy I am to be your friend!_

As the sun rose up, and the first views of land rose along with it, the boat sailed ever onward, leaving tiny flecks of bronze floating in the waves behind.

**The End**


End file.
